LOWER FORD OF BEAR RIVER. / 8T 



CHAPTER V. 



EXPLORATION OP A ROUTE FROM GREAT SALT LAKE CITY TO FORT 

 HALL, AND RECONNOISSANCE OF CACHE VALLEY. 



Matters being thus satisfactorily adjusted, as the provisions 

 which had been laid in at the beginning of the journey were nearly 

 exhausted, I left the city on the 12th of September, with teams 

 and pack-mules, for Fort Hall, to procure the supplies for the party 

 which had been forwarded to that post by the supply-train at- 

 tached to Colonel Loring's command; and at the same time to 

 carry out that portion of my instructions which directed me to ex- 

 plore a route for a road from the head of Salt Lake to Fort Hall. 

 The main party was left under the command of Lieutenant Gun- 

 nison, with instructions to commence the survey upon a basis already 

 laid down. I was accompanied on this trip by Mr. John Owen, 

 the sutler of the regiment of Mounted Rifles, and Mr. T. Pomeroy, 

 a merchant from St. Louis, on his way to California. Our route, 

 as far as the crossing of Bear River, near the head of the lake, was 

 that usually pursued by emigrants passing through Salt Lake City 

 to California. It skirts the eastern shore of the lake throughout 

 its whole length, from north to south, as far as the ford, where 

 the road turns ofi" to the west. As the country passed over in this 

 part of the journey is embraced within the limits of the survey, it 

 requires, at present, no farther notice. 



From the crossing, the emigrant road pursues a W. N. W. course, 

 until it intersects that from Fort Hall. The ford of Bear River 

 at this point is not very good. The banks are high and steep on 

 both sides, and the stream, which is about two hundred and fifty 

 feet wide, is quite rapid. The bottom is a hard, firm gravel. In 

 the spring and early part of summer, the waters are too high to 

 admit of fording, and temporary ferries become necessary. Leav- 

 ing the emigrant road at this point, our route may be described, 

 generally, as following up the Malade (called by Fremont the 

 Roseaux) to its head ; thence crossing a high dividing ridge, we 

 fall upon the heads of the Pannack, a tributary of the Port Neuf, 

 (which latter is an affluent of Lewis's Fork of the Columbia,) and 



